When I taught middle school, the slacker kids would tell me that they would shape up in high school. They would do their homework then, because it would matter then. Now, I've moved on to teaching high school and I get the same response. They'll claim that they can do their homework when they set their minds to it and it matters. Sure. I look at some of these kids and seriously doubt that they'll be able to change their ways when they're in college. Also, in high school, most teachers will give some credit just for doing their homework whether it is correct or not and for class participation. I have some students who can do poorly on every single test, but by doing their homework and participating in class discussions. I worry about how they'll do in college when their grades will be based simply on how they do on tests and papers.I hesitate to generalize from my own experience, but the high defect rate in higher education suggests the following observation is not off base.
Bad habits acquired in middle and high school persist as bad habits in college.
Got that? Good.
Here's what provokes today's rant: a stack of term paper drafts, some of which students are attempting to write in order to satisfy a new departmental graduation requirement. Absent substantial improvement, some of these papers will not satisfy the requirement, despite my efforts this week to make public the criteria by which the papers will be evaluated. A number of them read as if they are the first efforts, EVER, by these students to commit anything longer than the "pay to the order of" line on a check to paper. Be grateful, Mr. and Ms. America, that the universities are holding the last line of defense against social promotion into the workforce. But be very angry that the lines of defense the middle and high schools were supposed to have held have been deserted, often at the urging of the students and of some of their parents.
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